My Heart of Glass
by The Button Harlequin
Summary: Steampunk AU. When war veteran John Watson comes home he doesn't feel that things are going to be alright, what with no arm and no will to live and all. But when Sherlock Holmes comes into the picture bringing the familiar rush, John thinks that things will get better. Before Moriarty and Magnussen come into the picture that is. JohnLock. Not Magiarty.


_A/N:__ Yes, this is a steampunk AU of BBC Sherlock and yes I do think that I'll keep this up (probably). If you have an idea that you want integrated into the story, send me a PM or leave me a review with your idea and I'll think on it. Any and all reviews are well and appreciated and I adore every single review from the bottom of my (not glass) heart. Oh, but I may be crabby on some occasions depending on what character I'm still acting in, so please, no hate (but flames are still appreciated because they will be used to roast marshmallows and tell campfire stories around…when it's not below zero outside)._

_Warnings:__ Hmm, I guess I should put some warnings, although I've never had to do so before. Um, death, violence, betrayal, smart-assery, aaaaannnnndddd…I don't know, whole bunch of other shit I haven't thought of yet. Just adhere to the Teen rating and I think that we'll all be in good shape. Yeah, I think that the warnings cover pretty much the whole thing so, hey, I probably won't do it again unless I find something really warning worthy. Cool? Cool._

_Disclaimer__: Do I own BBC Sherlock? (Looks through every legal document in the house) Apparently not. Now do I own Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes? (Again, looks through every single legal document in the house and says in my best Olivander voice) Nope, no, definitely not. Damn. Oh well, don't own, don't gain. Simply to entertain. _

_**My Heart of Glass**_

_**Written By: The Button Harlequin**_

_**Chapter 1: The End that was the Beginning**_

There are times in every person's life when they believe that they are going to die. It might be over something small, like an extreme embarrassment, or perhaps over something legitimately death inducing such as a motor carriage crash. For Captain John Hamish Watson of the 5th Northumberland Medical Evacuation Squad, he believed he was going to die when he was surrounded by sand, blood, screams, and more enemies than he ever wanted to acknowledge for the rest of his existence.

That was the day that the rain turned red and the sky turned black, the day that the sun was gone behind the smog of the zeppelins and planes and the ash that that was their unholy offspring. The sand settled and made homes in the wounds of soldiers on both sides of the line and at every level the war was fought on, above, on the ground, and bellow. There was nothing sacred in the field of battle, let alone the courtesy of military medics to evacuate the living leftovers after they were sent through the meat grinder (both figuratively and literally, which was a messy and traumatizing event for all participants) and to the makeshift hospitals that healed said injured soldiers and sent them right back out with a tourniquet, some stitches and a prayer.

Captain John Hamish Watson of the 5th Northumberland Medical Evacuation Squad was the unfortunate soul that believed that people would be human enough to allow other people to live, even if they were going to die within a matter of minutes because of the wounds they had received from the other side or their own side (treachery, although frowned upon, was not entirely unexpected. They left those people to rot in their own piss and shit). But the problem with unfortunate souls was that they were beautiful in their innocence. John's soul, though tainted by the blood of hundreds from his service in the military, was scratched and spit-shined clean by the hundreds more that he had intentionally saved and/or spared from the darkest depths of death. So naturally, it was only proper for him to be the one to willingly become the meat shield of more than a dozen men all at once when every single one of them believed that by now it was every man for himself and that, despite the eternal vows of militaristic brotherhood, eternity was only so long as one was there to imagine that eternity existed. Anything else was entirely up to debate.

But I digress: When John Hamish Watson of the 5th Northumberland Medical Evacuation Squad willingly became the moving meat shield he was no longer their commander. He became John. Just John. Just John the man, the one who was drawing the fire away from his brothers in arms (and don't brothers always annoy one in the end with their constant disappointment) to his own stocky, short ("compact!" … Yes, thank you for your input John) build, John saw out of the corner of his eye the only thing that could possibly have stopped him from completing his death.

Just ten meters in front of the John was a good and kind man named Bill Murray, who had been shot and taken down with not but a meter or two from the next man, whose name John never cared for and whose face John would have been glad never to think about again. Sebastian Moran, despicable quiet man that he was, had grabbed Murray by the collar to have _him_ be the _un_willing meat shield, one shot to the left calf, and not the man currently working his arse off to be the one in that position.

Sebastian had run off once his cruel life was saved, somewhere John didn't know but vowed to find later to show exactly what happens when traitors and cowards were among the ranks of Captain John H. Watson's men. Murray needed his help though, and John's life was all that John could offer at the moment. The man once known as Captain John Watson dashed to Bill Murray's side, grabbing him by his uninjured arms to hoist him over his shoulders in a fireman's carry.

"Don't worry mate, we'll get you to base," John reassured him as best he could with what little breath he still had, because base was safety and safety was what his men needed. All Bill Murray could do was give a half-sob-half-groan from the pain in his leg, the blood running right through John's leather vest to soak the harsh woolen brown cloth of his uniform. In a flash he was Captain John Watson again, the one to take care of his men as best he could, leading them all back to their base of basic tents and bad medical equipment and at least a sleeping roll without any enemies hovering nearby.

"Leave me Captain," Bill Murray groaned from John's right shoulder, "You'll be able to get out of here faster without me slowing you down. Please sir, just tell my family that-"

"Sergeant Murray if you finish that sentence then I will clock you in the head with a brick and make you forget that you ever said that to me," the Captain threatened mockingly between huffs of breath, "I will never in all my life leave a man behind just because he asked me too and never in all my life will I ever deliver a man's last words to his family if I can help it. You have a leg injury Murray, not a head injury; you need to start thinking clearly and making sense. I'm getting you all out of here right now and I'm going to take care of you all as soon as I can."

With his promise given, Captain Watson clicked a copper dial on his helmet and a small red and blue flashing light was born on the left side of his metallic face-shield, which was replicated by every other soldier's face shield in his command. The signal to retreat and return to base given officially now, every man that was still loyally fighting the enemy pulled back with haste (at just a glance the Captain had counted four men in battle) and followed the example of their commanding officer. Captain Watson then carried Bill Murray over dozens sand dunes, under tents covered in more sand and finally to a med bed with only a thin layer of earthy grains.

"Nurse Smith!" the Captain immediately took control of the chaos brewing in his charge, "Stabilize Sergeant Murray now! The rest of you, take care of the incoming patients from Sectors 4, 5, and 9. If you've got a wound that needs taking care of do it fast and if it can wait then let it. Anyone else that can't move, put them off to the side and out of the way; we've got a lot of people coming in and it's going to be nasty." The men still capable of saluting did so with hurried respect, scurrying off to do their duties and save the ones that could be saved.

The one greatest mistake that Captain John H. Watson could have ever made, when he thought back to that moment later in his life, was to then leave his men to go after Sebastian Moran, traitor to the British Empire, and serve justice as swiftly as possible. So long as Moran lived, the chances of a repeat occurrence against men of the Queen were high, and the fact that was a chance at all was what solidified the Captain's decision to take care of it. The reason for a repeat occurrence? Because every country wanted a British trained soldier of fortune, as their own mercenary for hire or teacher to their own forces, the end result would still be bad regardless. That's why Captain Watson needed to find the bastard ASAP and return to his men.

Captain Watson may not have known exactly where Moran had run after his betrayal, but he had at least a good idea of the vicinity that he would end up at to escape. At the invisible line that separated the British Empire from the Middle Eastern Forces there was a quarter-mile divide that was unofficially known as the neutral zone, the area that no guns were fired and all civilians could escape by. Captain Watson's hunch was proven true when after barely fifteen minutes of searching he found Moran sliding into a caravan of war torn and sweat soaked refugees, blending in with the ease of much practice and the fact that he himself was a refugee now, although not the kind that anyone would take pity on.

Simply from the sight of Moran did the man named John's blood boil and Captain Watson's trigger finger twitch. In those few moments, and the hours afterwards, did Captain and man merge into one single organism, whose sole existence was to take down the traitor and keep the people safe, the people being his men and the refugees together.

Captain John followed the refugees and Moran in the desert speckled rusty red and the sky grayer than death at a safe distance until finally, night fell and the refugees set up camp. Captain John could see that Moran was settled in almost the middle of the camp; it would be almost impossible to sneak in when the guards were put up. Thus, Captain John made the split second decision that he should have thought through.

Captain John took his pistol in hand and fired three gun shots into the air above his head. Quicker than anyone would ever believe if he told them, Captain John watched in amazement as refugees of all ages scrambled for cover in the most orderly and practiced routine that he had ever seen. Refusing to think of how much stress and worry he must be putting those poor people under, Captain John dashed towards the camp to see only a second later that Moran was tearing out of his crude dirty tent to the outskirts and towards whatever vague areas of safety he could find.

A mile of running in soft earth left both men, hunter and prey, like fish out of water, gasping for sooty oxygen and begging for perhaps a meter of extra land against the other man. Captain Watson refused to allow his men to be in danger while John the man would not accept that one man could destroy the lives of others.

And it was through this chase of gunman and target that they both hadn't seen the minefield sign.

Though the times of sand and blood were long gone and far behind John Watson, former Captain of the 5th Northumberland Medical Evacuation Squad, that did not mean that they left him in peace. For many nights since the Moran Incident, a once perhaps too proud man had been tormented by his memories, the ones that showed the truth and the others that were distortions of the facts, although he refused to call them anything but simple nightmares (however wrong and understated the word was). And with the realization that he was no longer elbow deep in blood and revenge and security for his men did he perceive the hardest thing about being back in civilian life.

He was no longer Captain Watson anymore. He was John. Just John. Sure, he could be called '_Doctor Watson'_ if he so chose, but for him that would be nothing but further punishment of his mistakes. A man like him being called a doctor. What a cruel joke.

A mundane existence followed in the wake of consciousness, after the dream world had finished its punishment of him. Get up, get ready, get his arse down to the therapy clinic that specialized in soldier mind sickness, what they're calling nowadays PTSD or some other nonsense. After however long the mind doctor ("psychiatrist John, I'm called a psychiatrist") held him for, John would take a walk around the park a mere four blocks from the clinic, which took him the better part of twenty minutes to get there and perhaps an hour walk around it to enjoy the smiles of couples strolling and children playing and older ladies and gentlemen feeding the ducks. The wind would play with hems of pretty dresses and petticoats, would sometimes mischievously try and steal a gentleman's top hat, and all the while rearrange everyone's hair into the whimsical styles that it so desired, as it took no mind of carefully made buns or comb throughs or ribbon woven plaits. No, the wind was free to do whatever it pleased in the world and everyday John wanted to be the wind in the park he walked.

Because sometimes, one of the few deviations from his schedule, he wouldn't stop by the park at all. Sometimes, the pitiful stares were just too much.

After the park, or if he decided it was not a park day, John would continue his stroll to the London Library, where people would glance but not stare and where he could spend his day in peace until closing time, where he would then go back to his flat on the third floor of his building and gaze out into the night, read a book, or stare down at blank pages for hours without end until some form of sleep claimed him.

"Write down your experiences John, they will help the healing process," she had said, and perhaps out of stubbornness or perhaps from the fact that nothing ever happened to him, John could not write like the mind doctor suggested. Nothing would come to him, and if by some flash of writing inspiration it did, he would refuse to write what it was.

Perhaps it was his stubbornness. Perhaps it was his guilt. Or perhaps it was the simple fact that nothing truly ever happened to John the man. EVER. Two months (God, has it only been two months? It's felt like twenty years) and nothing was happening. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing.

It happened on one of the days that John decided that he wanted to take a walk around the park that something finally, finally, _finally_, happened to him. But, as all good things do, it began as something so small and insignificant that it would stick in the mind as the turning point for his entire life.

"John? John Watson?" The man that answered to such a name was ash blond, compact, blue eyed, tan, wore frumpy workman's clothes with no shape but it was clear that the body beneath held some sort of physical definition. Nothing remarkable about the basics, until the unusual were mentioned: solid cane for a gimpy leg, steel in eyes that before had never even been hard, an empty left sleeve where an arm was supposed to fill out. It was hard to think that the man who answered to the name of John Watson was once a cheerful youth with lights in his eyes and an easy laugh. That man that stood then looked as if he hadn't laughed in years.

"Yes?" asked the man that responded as John Watson. The man who had called to him was unfamiliar: fat, pale, easy going face and slightly dull looking eyes, but a nice suit and top hat so he must be doing well for himself.

The man smiled and held out a hand in greeting, "It's Mike! Mike Stamford, we used to work together way back when and an age ago."

"Oh yes, hi! Goodness, how have you been?" And while Mike and John made small talk about this, that, and there, it was not until Mike and he had settled themselves on a bench with small paper cups of tea, watching the steely gray zeppelins sail by and the motor carriages on to wherever they went, that Stamford finally brought up the question.

"So what have you been doing all this time, John? Last I heard you were in Afghanistan getting shot at."

John deadpanned, "I got shot."

Mike, his face pinking in embarrassment, cleared his throat and continued. "Well, uh, anyway, got yourself situated then? Being back in civilian life and all? How about the other guys, staying with any of them, seen any of them?"

Now it was John's turn to be embarrassed. "Well, no, I've mostly just been living by myself. Can't find anywhere decent to live on an army pension anyway."

"Well what about a flatmate?"

A mirthful snort escaped John's mouth before he could stop it, "And who would want me as a flatmate?" Mike let out a sudden laugh, surprising the ex-army doctor into saying, "What?"

"That is the second time that someone has told me that today."

A pause. "Who was the first?"

The first thing that hit John was the smell: heavy hospital soap, then the fragrance of harsh laboratory chemicals, and as Mike and John descended deeper into the underbelly of St. Bart's Hospital, the unmistakable scent of dead bodies. Bare stone corridors were the only sights for a long time; the only sounds were of footsteps and the heavy tapping of John's cane. Occasionally a solid oak door would interrupt the monotonous white of the walls, which would then be accompanied by a window into the room, where it would always reveal a dissecting theater, all of them empty except for the last which was packed with people in cramped seats and all looking down at the dissected body of an old man who obviously died of black lung. If John had to really guess then he would have said that the old man was just dug up the previous night.

Mike and John passed by every single one until finally, the last room on the left, was entered. John, retired army doctor that he was, still felt undeniably impressed giddiness upon sight of the chamber. However large the space was (for it was indeed very large) it still appeared to be too cramped for the entire mess that apparently was a laboratory of some kind as beakers, Bunsen burners, scales with their counterweights set off to the side, Petri dishes everywhere (some clean and others with some unnamable substance that didn't bare thinking too closely about), and the strongest stench of rotting or rotted flesh outside of the morgue and the dissecting theaters seemed to converge all towards a center table that held both a microscope and the attention of a single man.

None of any of it held John's interest like the man in the room did. He was most definitely tall, almost an entire head taller than John if he guessed right, was pale as the moon, curly dark hair in bouncy disarray like he was in constant motion, and clothes that hugged his thin frame like they were tailor made to him (and going by just the quality it was most likely bespoke anyway). The man looked up from the microscope in front of him, and John noted that his face was just as thin as the rest of him, prominent razor sharp cheekbones aside. But those eyes, _his_ eyes, they were some wonderful nameless color that shifted between mint green, ice blue, and mercury silver, and had the knife-like intelligence of someone who knew absolutely everything at a single glance.

In order to avoid blatant staring of the man, John tore his eyes away to stare pointedly at different spots of the laboratory, doing some superficial examination of whatever else caught his interest. "Well, this is a bit different from my day." Indeed it was – when John was training there was actually space to turn around without the threat of knocking something dangerous looking over.

The man seemed to ignore John's mindless mutterings. "Mike," the voice that came from the man was a deep baritone that was both magical and surprising, "can I borrow your watch? I need to measure the reaction time for an experiment and I melted mine some time ago."

All John could do was blink in surprise and turn back to the man while Mike simply huffed good-naturedly with his response, "And if you melted yours then why would I ever want to lend you mine? Besides, it's in my coat pocket out by the entrance."

"Here, use mine," the words came out before John even had time to think about it, digging through his nearly bare pockets to grasp the silver pocket watch and hand it to the man behind the microscope. He even took the extra few steps to hand the device to him, never mind that his shoulder stump was aching from impending rain or that his cane was taking up the majority of his hand while he held the watch by its chain.

The man gave him one sweeping glance, but it was enough to make John's cheeks heat up with he didn't know what. It was like those nameless color eyes had shoved their way into his mind and unraveled every single thought he ever had, had unburied every single secret he had ever kept, and knew every experience that he didn't want to speak of. It was unnerving…but undoubtedly dangerous. Dangerously –

_No no no no no no, Watson. Stop that train of thought right now, you're going to give yourself away. _

John was spared any further mental self-berating by the baritone of the man in the fine clothes. "The Afghan Lands or the Iraqi Quarter Mines?" The man had already taken John's pocket watch without the ex-soldier's it seemed, and was back to watching his microscope closely.

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I asked if you served in the Afghan Lands or the Iraqi Quarter Mines," the man rolled his eyes like he couldn't believe he had to repeat himself.

"The Afghan Lands," John hesitated slightly as he gathered what could possibly have given him away (never mind the fact that those eyes could probably read minds anyway). Seeing nothing he asked, "I'm sorry, how did you know that?" He looked to Stamford, "Did you send him a telegram about me?"

Stamford seemed to get too much glee in saying, "No, nothing, not a word!"

The man seemed to ignore exchange in favor of whatever reaction he was testing under the microscope, a pen poised over a notebook in one hand and John's watch in the other. However, his train of thought must have still been somewhere because he continued speaking, "How do you feel about the violin? Days of silence followed by days of nothing but chatter, sometimes vice versa? Occasionally I'll be too wrapped up in my work to sleep for days, but I'll always sleep for quite a long time afterwards. Will that bother you too much? Flatmates should always know the worst about each other."

"Who," John shifted his feet, "said anything about flatmates?"

"Well, I did. Just this morning I tell Mike Stamford about needing a flatmate and this afternoon he comes around with an old friend just come home from the Afghan Lands? It's not a huge stretch of the imagination to believe in such a thing." He said it all while not taking his eyes away from the microscope and finally writing something down in the notebook in some semblance of handwriting that was more scrawl than letters.

John could feel his face turn into something akin to wonder while Mike simply laughed at whatever expression he was sporting. John turned back to Mike, a silent finger pointing to the man as the rounded man, grinning like the bloody Cheshire Cat, simply said, "Yes, he does that all the time. I don't know quite how he does it, but it is what he does."

By that time the man had snapped his notebook closed and tucked it and his pencil into an expensive looking yet entirely fitting gray Belstaff coat that had hung from a replica of a human arm on a higher shelf behind the man. The microscope was left out in the open, the used slide still in place and untouched despite whatever reaction had taken place there only seconds before.

The man swung on the Belstaff coat with a flourish, causing John to catch just the slightest hint of harsh chemicals, expensive but good cologne, and the oddest scent of sweet baked goods from the wind that the man created, for he was apparently a force of nature all unto himself. He created his own gravity, his own sun and his own wind. John blinked as a singular thought encircled, trapped, and utterly stole his mind away.

_This man is like the wind in the park._

John, so engrossed in his thought, almost missed what the man said next. "Thank you for allowing me the use of your watch," and the man took the liberty of opening John's jacket pocket and dropping the small device unceremoniously within before striding to the door of the laboratory, "and I agree to seeing the flat with you. Now if you'll excuse me I have to go and salvage my riding crop from the dissecting theater before I lose another one to theft. Doctors, as respectable they are to the public, are far too prone to abnormal sexual behavior involving things such a crops and whips. One would think that their profession would be against such practices but the facts push against the theories."

"But wait!" the man was half way out the door before John exclaimed, "We just met and now we're going to go look at a flat together? I don't know anything about you, you don't know anything about me, I don't know where we're meeting, I don't even know your name."

The man's eyes sparked into something like restrained yet still cheerful recognition. "I know that you're an army doctor recently returned from the Afghan Lands and have a limp that your therapist believes to be psychosomatic, quite rightly I'm afraid, and that you have a brother who you aren't very close to. Possibly because he just walked out on his wife, possibly he has a drinking problem. I know that you need a flatmate and that I need one as well, so we might as well look at the same one together." The man smirked at John, whose eyes were wide in shock. "The address is 221B Baker Street, Friday at 3 o'clock. Oh, and the name is Sherlock Holmes."

The ex-army medic watched in rapt attention as the man – Sherlock Holmes – swept through the laboratory doors with a wink and a grin and God help John because he knew that he wasn't going to be able to escape from the fearsome beauty and intelligence that was Sherlock Holmes.

Not that he wanted to escape. Far from it. If anything, John was the quite willing captive to a man who he met half an hour ago.

John sighed. God help him.


End file.
